Andrea Riseborough was sitting on the terrace of the fabled Excelsior Hotel on the Venice Lido on Wednesday and nobody noticed.Twenty-four hours later, she was on the red carpet with Madonna, and this time the world sat up and paid attention.
Riseborough, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, is a sensation in Madonna’s great love story W.E. about the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII.
Andrea plays Mrs Simpson, who later became the Duchess of Windsor, and it’s one of those career-changing roles. I predict her days of being able to sit on the Excelsior terrace unrecognised are over.
Yet Riseborough’s success is due, in part, to a chameleon-like ability to transform herself that she has always possessed.
Watching an early screening of the film the other day I had the strangest sensation that I was seeing the real Mrs Simpson mixing cocktails. Andrea can crawl under the skin of the person she’s portraying.
And when she played the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk To Finchley, she made us believe she was the real Iron Lady. It’s a rare gift.
But filming W.E. sometimes left her feeling ‘heartbroken’.
‘I hadn’t realised how lonely Wallis Simpson was and how empty her life became when she was in exile with the Duke of Windsor,’ she told me on that empty terrace.
That comes through in Madonna’s film. All those pugs, those frocks, those gems, that mountain of embroidered linen, all those houses . .. they were substitutes.
She knew that was how it was going to be the moment the King told her he would abdicate. ‘I will have to be with him always and always and always,’ she wrote to her Aunt Bessie in a moment of pure despair.
Seeing the film a second time I felt that even the irritating modern-day parallel love story involving Abbie Cornish and Oscar Isaac works — most of the time — because of the passion of the actors and, it must be said, their director.
I still think that ten minutes could be carefully edited out and everyone would be happier.
But the score is superb. Abel Korzeniowski composed most of it with a couple of haunting piano pieces by Yann Tiersen.
And I think W.E. is likely to garner Andrea some best actress award heat — and possibly some awards interest for Madonna, too.
The film opens in the UK in January, but it will have a special gala at the BFI London Film Festival next month.
Riseborough, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, is a sensation in Madonna’s great love story W.E. about the romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII.
A star is born: Actress Andrea Riseborough with W.E. writer and director Madonna
Yet Riseborough’s success is due, in part, to a chameleon-like ability to transform herself that she has always possessed.
Watching an early screening of the film the other day I had the strangest sensation that I was seeing the real Mrs Simpson mixing cocktails. Andrea can crawl under the skin of the person she’s portraying.
And when she played the young Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk To Finchley, she made us believe she was the real Iron Lady. It’s a rare gift.
Red carpet line-up: Madonna with her W.E cast at the film's premiere in Venice
Overnight sensation: Andrea Riseborough, pictured here with Madonna, became instantly recognisable after the film's screening
‘I hadn’t realised how lonely Wallis Simpson was and how empty her life became when she was in exile with the Duke of Windsor,’ she told me on that empty terrace.
That comes through in Madonna’s film. All those pugs, those frocks, those gems, that mountain of embroidered linen, all those houses . .. they were substitutes.
She knew that was how it was going to be the moment the King told her he would abdicate. ‘I will have to be with him always and always and always,’ she wrote to her Aunt Bessie in a moment of pure despair.
Gowning glory: The two women adjust their show-stopping dresses as they take their place on the red carpet
I still think that ten minutes could be carefully edited out and everyone would be happier.
But the score is superb. Abel Korzeniowski composed most of it with a couple of haunting piano pieces by Yann Tiersen.
And I think W.E. is likely to garner Andrea some best actress award heat — and possibly some awards interest for Madonna, too.
The film opens in the UK in January, but it will have a special gala at the BFI London Film Festival next month.
